I
"About so high, I should think," said the girl, with a swift twinkle. She measured off a diminutive man on the huge blue-and-white porcelain stove and stood back to survey it. "And about as big," she added reflectively.
Her sister laughed. The girl nodded again.
"And terribly homely," she said, making a little mouth. Her eyes laughed. She leaned forward with a mysterious air. "And, Marie, his coat is green, and his trousers are—white!"
The two girls giggled in helpless amusement. They had a stolid German air of family resemblance, but the laughing eyes of the younger danced in their round setting, while the sleepy blue ones of the older girl followed the twinkling pantomime with a look of half protest.
"They were in the big reception-room," went on the girl, "and I bounced in on them. Mamma Rosine was giving him the family history—you and me."
They giggled again.
The younger one drew down her face and folded her hands in matronly dignity, gazing pensively at the blue-and-white stove, her head a little to one side.
"My own voice is alto, Herr Schubert, and my daughter Caroline's; but my daughter Marie has a beautiful soprano." She rolled her eyes, with an air of resigned sentiment, and shook the bobbing black curls gently from side to side. "And he just twiddled his thumbs like this, and grunted." She seized her sister around her plump waist and shook her vigorously. "Don't you see it?" she demanded.
The older girl laughed hysterically, with disturbed eyes.